Wednesday, October 31, 2012

US must end shameful embargo

Updated: 2012-10-26 08:07

By Chen Weihua ( China Daily)

There have been many talks and articles this week in the United
States to mark the 50th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis, a Cold
War episode that at one point seemed to herald a global nuclear
showdown. But missing is attention to the 50-year-old US embargo on the
Caribbean island nation.

The longest unilateral economic sanctions in modern history have
caused huge suffering for 11 million Cubans, including all women and
children. The blockade will go down in history as an immoral and cruel
act, just like the treatment of American Indians more than a century ago
and the racial segregation in the US before the 1970s.

On Nov 13, the United Nations will again vote on a resolution to
denounce the embargo. It will be the 21st consecutive year that the UN
has called for an end to the sanctions. In last year's vote, 186
nations, including most of the US' closest allies, supported the
resolution. Israel was the only one that sided with Washington.

US leaders like to accuse other nations of being on the wrong
side of history. Yet on this issue they have steadfastly chosen to stay
on the wrong side.

In fact, US leaders have not only chosen to ignore the rest of
the world they have also chosen to ignore the will of their own people.
Various surveys have shown that most Americans favor lifting the
sanctions and re-establishing formal diplomatic ties with Cuba.

The reason the US persists with this inhumane policy is a
shameful one. Cuban-Americans in Florida who are against the Cuban
government are important voters and financiers for both Democratic and
Republican parties in the critical swing state.

As a senator in 2004, Barack Obama called for an end to the
embargo, which he described as a failure. He promised during his 2008
campaign to start negotiations with the Cuban government once elected.

However, except for some easing of travel bans for
Cuban-Americans and groups, Obama has done nothing to end the full-blown
embargo. Under the embargo, it is illegal for ordinary Americans to
visit Cuba and for US companies to do business there.

If Republican candidate Mitt Romney becomes president on Nov 6,
the eased travel rights for Cuban-Americans and groups could be taken
away. His 10-point Cuba plan includes reinstating travel and remittance
restrictions.

When I described to some Americans the fascinating culture,
beaches and people I discovered during my two trips to Cuba last year, I
could see the envy in their eyes.

It is interesting that when late president John F. Kennedy
announced the embargo on Feb 3, 1962, he cited "the subversive offensive
of Sino-Soviet Communism with which the government of Cuba is publicly
aligned". The Cold War has long been over, there is no Soviet Union and
China is a major trading partner of the US. Yet many US politicians
still cling to a Cold War mentality.

The embargo on Cuba continues despite the fact that Cuba, under
Raul Castro, has embarked on political and economic reforms in the last
two years. Just a week ago, the official newspaper Granma reported the
government will ease travel restrictions for its citizens.

Economic sanctions hurt ordinary people more than government
leaders. Even Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi did not like
the idea of sanctions. Speaking at the US Institute of Peace in
Washington on Sept 18, she said: "I don't think we need to cling on to
sanctions unnecessarily."

In 1962, the US embargo on Cuba was imposed to isolate Cuba. But
now the US itself has become totally isolated on this issue. And the UN
vote on Nov 13 will be a fresh reminder.

If you have reached retirement age and start collecting Social Security retirement benefits and decide that you want to live in the Peoples Republic of China, Vietnam or Cuba the USA government -- greedy capitalists that they are -- immediately confiscates your pension. You contributed your FICA taxes, and they steal the money that belongs to you.

FCBA (Federacion Cubana de Beisbol Aficionado) reports that Team Cuba defeated the Prospects Academy of the Pirates of Campeche. Is was a knockout in seven innings. The Cuban massacre was stopped when it reached 14-0.

Pitt News

Created on Thursday, 25 October 2012 03:41

Written by Rosie McKinley / Columnist

Cuban
buses overflow with people. As a result of the country’s transportation
crisis, riding a crowded bus in Havana is a bit like spooning with a
bunch of strangers. But with reggaeton blasting through the speakers,
the ride remains comfortable despite the Caribbean’s sweaty heat. After
50 years of austere socialism, Cubans gracefully manage the challenges
brought by economic struggle, even if it means people’s hands stuck in
others’ armpits.

While
many of Cuba’s economic pains are self-inflicted, the Cuban people
suffer further because of the United States’ draconian economic embargo
against the country. This embargo is an outdated policy of dubious
effectiveness that damages the U.S.’s reputation abroad. We should rid
ourselves of it.

You
should also take this issue into consideration when you vote. Despite
the fact that Cuba has been largely overlooked this election, it is one
area of foreign policy that President Barack Obama and presidential
nominee Mitt Romney actually disagree on. If you’re failing to see much
difference between the two on issues elsewhere, a Romney presidency
would usher in entirely different policies in Cuba than those being
pursued today.

The
embargo began largely because of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which
reached its climax 50 years ago this week. The news that the Soviet
Union was stockpiling nuclear weapons just 90 miles from the U.S. coast
sparked the most volatile moments of the Cold War. Our parents found
themselves hiding under school desks, fearing Armageddon; embargo seemed
appropriate.

A
half-century later, those school children are now middle-aged baby
boomers nearing retirement. We, as a generation, are inheriting a much
different America. The embargo is a relic; a festering wound of failed
foreign policy that we have the responsibility to end in order to repair
relations with our southern neighbor.

For
one, the embargo hasn’t worked. It has failed in its goals of removing
the Castro family from power and restoring democracy in Cuba. It has
only created a humanitarian crisis that we are partly responsible for.
Cuba remains a socialist country with Castro leadership, and we are left
wondering why a policy that doesn’t work remains, especially
considering the international disapproval it brings — the U.N. General
Assembly has condemned the embargo for 20 straight years.

The
Electoral College is partly to blame. The vast majority of
Cuban-Americans live in Florida and New Jersey — two major electoral
states in the presidential election, with Florida perpetually
competitive. These are the people who lost property and wealth as a
result of Castro’s revolution. To them, a harsh embargo is the only
appropriate form of justice for Castro.

Obama,
in a risky political move, has slowly been rolling away many of these
programs, risking Cuban-American votes by loosening travel laws to Cuba.
Working under the belief that we can’t improve relations with a country
that we don’t understand, he has lifted many travel restrictions,
allowing individuals to attain permission to visit. His policies allowed
the Pitt in Cuba study abroad program to restart in 2010 after Bush-era
restrictions forced the program’s termination.

Romney
endorses a much different path forward, promising a return to the
strict adherence of the Helms-Burton Act, which would strengthen the
embargo to a point so anti-humanitarian that American allies from Great
Britain to Argentina have condemned it. The act, signed by President
Bill Clinton, bans trade with any trading partner of Cuba, even for
medicine or food.

In
the 1990s, while American children were growing up in relatively
prosperous times, this act left Cuban kids to starve. There are stories
of people melting condoms — which the Cuban government issued to keep
population growth manageable — into cheap pizzas as a way of stretching
their food sources. Although these stories are probably urban myths,
their existence points to the awful circumstances that most Cubans lived
in. Conditions were so awful that thousands of Cubans risked their
lives to float through shark-infested waters on man-made rafts to reach
the shores of southern Florida.

In
America, they found increased freedoms. This is the great irony of the
embargo: While we were banning investment in Cuba in the name of
freedom, our government’s restrictions on travel were in a similar
although lesser way preventing us from exercising our own. Also, while
we attack the Castro government for limiting elections, many of us
blissfully ignore the right we have here: Where is the embargo on the 45
percent of the country that doesn’t go to the polls just because we
don’t feel like it?

Obama’s
policy toward Cuba is far from ideal: Some form of embargo will be
continued under a second term. Yet Romney’s proposed return to harsh
repression does nothing to advance our countries toward a working
relationship. Under Romney, we face the continued diminishing of our
country’s international reputation. We become further distanced from our
once-rumored greatness as a leader of the free world.

That
said, if you strongly agree with returning to the harsh status quo that
has done little to influence Cuban policies over the last 50 years,
then vote against Obama. After all, voting either way is valuable.

Yesterday, Cuba defeated 13-1 the team from the Autonomous University of Carmen.It was a friendly baseball training game in Mexico, as Cuba prepares for the 2013 World Baseball Classic in March of the coming year.

TALLAHASSEE—The Florida Chamber of Commerce is asking
a federal appeals court to continue blocking a new law that would
prevent state and local governments from contracting with firms that
have business links to Cuba or Syria.

The chamber filed a brief Monday in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals that says the law, passed this year by the Legislature and
signed by Gov. Rick Scott,
would have “far-reaching implications and unintended consequences that
will irreparably harm Florida businesses and the state’s economy.”

The state is appealing a Miami federal judge’s decision in June that
granted a preliminary injunction against the law, which the judge said
likely violated the U.S. Constitution.

Coral Gables-based Odebrecht Construction, Inc., filed the lawsuit
because its Brazilian parent company has another subsidiary involved in
the expansion of the Cuban port of Mariel --- an affiliation that, under
the new law, would prevent Odebrecht from bidding on government jobs in
Florida.

In the brief, the chamber said the law would discourage foreign
investment in the state and strain relations with Brazil and Canada. As
an example, the chamber said it received a call from the Canadian
ambassador to the United States about concerns that the law could affect
Canadian companies that do business in Florida but also have operations
in Cuba.

“If the Cuba Amendment (the law) is enforced, its impact will
reverberate far beyond the borders of the Sunshine State,’’ the brief
said. “Democratic foreign governments and their businesses will be
reluctant to do business in Florida. These are the very foreign
companies that Florida has worked so hard to attract.”

(Photo: Reuters) Hurricane Sandy is seen churning northwards in this
NOAA handout satellite image taken on October 25, 2012. The hurricane,
strengthening rapidly after crossing the warm Caribbean Sea, slammed
into southeastern Cuba early on Thursday with 105 mph winds that cut
power and blew over trees across the city of Santiago de Cuba.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

A message to the first graduating
class from the Victoria de Girón Medical Sciences
Institute was enough to prompt imperialist
propaganda to go into overdrive and news agencies to
voraciously launch themselves after the lie. Not
only that but, in their cables, they attributed the
most unheard of nonsense to the patient.

The ABC newspaper in Spain
reported that a Venezuelan doctor from an unknown
location revealed that Castro had suffered a massive
embolism in the right cerebral artery; "I can state
that we are not going to see him again in public."
The alleged doctor who, if he is, would first
abandon his own compatriots, described Castro’s
health as "very close to a neural-vegetative state."

While many persons in the world are
deceived by information agencies which publish this
nonsense - almost all in the hands of the privileged
and rich - people believe less and less in them.
Nobody likes to be deceived; even the most
incorrigible liar expects to be told the truth. In
April of 1961, everyone believed the information
published in the news agencies that the mercenary
invaders of Girón or Bay of Pigs, whatever one wants
to call it, were approaching Havana, when in fact
some of them were fruitlessly trying by boat to
reach the yanki warships escorting them.

The peoples are learning and
resistance is growing, faced with the crisis of
capitalism which is recurring with greater frequency;
no lies, repression or new weapons will be able to
prevent the collapse of a production system which is
increasingly unequal and unjust.

A few days ago, very close to the
50th anniversary of the October Crisis, news
agencies pointed to three guilty parties: Kennedy,
having recently become the leader of the empire,
Khrushchev and Castro. Cuba did not have anything to
do with nuclear weapons, nor with the unnecessary
slaughter of Hiroshima and Nagasaki perpetrated by
the president of the United States, Harry S. Truman,
thus establishing the tyranny of nuclear weapons.
Cuba was defending its right to independence and
social justice.

When we accepted Soviet aid in
weapons, oil, foodstuffs and other resources, it was
to defend ourselves from yanki plans to invade our
homeland, subjected to a dirty and bloody war which
that capitalist country imposed on us from the very
first months, which left thousands of Cubans dead
and maimed.

When Khrushchev proposed the
installation here of medium range missiles similar
to those the United States had in Turkey – far
closer to the USSR than Cuba to the United States –
as a solidarity necessity, Cuba did not hesitate to
agree to such a risk. Our conduct was ethically
irreproachable. We will never apologize to anyone
for what we did. The fact is that half a century has
gone by, and here we still are with our heads held
high.

I like to write and I am writing; I
like to study and I am studying. There are many
tasks in the area of knowledge. For example, never
before have the sciences advanced at such an
astounding speed.

I stopped publishing "Reflections"
because it is definitely not my role to take up
pages in our press, dedicated to other tasks which
the country requires.

Birds of ill omen! I don’t even
remember what a headache is. As evidence of what
liars they are, I present them with the photos which
accompany this article.

Cuba's Report on Resolution 66/6 of the United Nations General Assembly.

"Necessity of ending the economic, financial and commercial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba."

INTRODUCTION

The economic, commercial and financial blockade
of the United States against Cuba began to be implemented as from the
very moment when the Cuban Revolution triumphed in 1959, and all along
these years it has been even more institutionalized and refined through
the approval of several Presidential Proclamations and legal measures
that have turned it into an increasingly rigorous and all-embracing
policy.

Since then, the policy of economic suffocation
that the blockade represents has not ceased to be implemented, not even
for one single second, which is a clear evidence of the obsession of
successive United States’ administrations to destroy the political,
economic and social system chosen by the Cuban people in the exercise
of their right to self-determination and sovereignty. During all these
years, the political, legal and administrative mechanisms of that policy
have been tightened and reinforced aiming at a more efficient
implementation of it.

The entire structure that supports the blockade
qualifies as an act of genocide by virtue of the Geneva Convention of
1948 on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and as
an act of economic warfare as established by the Declaration on the Law
of Naval Warfare adopted by the London Naval Conference of 1909. As
can be ascertained while browsing the web sites of the US Departments
of the Treasury and Commerce, the blockade against Cuba continues to
be the most unfair, all-embracing, severe and longest-lasting system of
unilateral sanctions ever imposed against any country in the world.

As a result of the rigorous and aggressive
implementation of the laws and regulations that define the blockade,
Cuba is still unable to freely export and import products and services
to or from the United States and can not use US dollars to carry out
its international financial transactions or hold accounts in that
currency in third countries’ banks. Nor is Cuba allowed to receive
credits from US banks, their subsidiary banks in third countries or
international institutions such as the World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund or the Inter-American Development Bank.

Last year, the persecution of Cuba’s
international financial transactions was one of the most outstanding
features of the implementation of the blockade. According to the
Annual Report published by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)
of the Treasury Department, the total of Cuban funds frozen by the
United States amounts to 245 million dollars, thus hindering Cuba’s economic, social, scientific and technological development.

The US government, in contempt for the will of
the international community and the General Assembly expressed in the
twenty resolutions adopted by that body which call for an end to this
policy, continues to assert that it will maintain the blockade as a
“tool for pressure” and that it has no intention whatsoever to change
its approach towards Cuba.

The economic damage caused to the Cuban people
by the implementation of the US economic, commercial and financial
blockade until December 2011, taking into account the devaluation of
the dollar vis-à-vis the price of gold and the world market, amounts to 1 trillion 66 billion (1,066,000,000,000) dollars.

At current prices, and based on a very conservative estimate, this figure exceeds 108 billion (108,000,000,000) dollars.

Despite having failed in the pursuance of its
goals, the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the
United States continues to be the main obstacle that prevents Cuba
from fully developing its economic and social potential.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Surface-to-air missile site at La Coloma, Cuba. According to the caption
on the photograph, it was taken during a reconnaissance flight on 10
November 1962.

Source: National Archives, Still Pictures Branch, Record Group 342-B, box 1401

Secret Notes by Deputy Secretary Roswell Gilpatric Show Early
Interest in Trade of U.S. Jupiter Missiles for Soviet Missile in Cuba,
Even a Status Change for Guantanamo, as Basis of a Settlement, Presaging
Elements of the the Secret Deal that Helped End the Crisis

Daily Journals, Notes, and Calendars Show President Kennedy
Calling the Pentagon to Ensure that Navy Used the Least Aggressive
Measures to Track Soviet Submarines in the Caribbean But also Approving
Uploading of H-Bombs on Alert Aircraft in Europe

Coast Guard, Not Navy, Made First Stop of a Ship during the Quarantine

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Quito, Oct 20, 2012 (Prensa Latina) Trade between Ecuador and Cuba will
double this year, especially the export of services, said here Antonio
Carricarte, Cuban Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment.
At the end of a work visit to Ecuador, Carricarte told Prensa Latina
this visit has been an opportunity to review every sector with
potentials to improve economic collaboration with Ecuador.

"In
August we already surpassed the ratings of the 2011 trade and according
to the terms of recent and previous agreements, we can say that
bilateral exchange will grow two-fold this year; that includes the
export of services."

"These exports stand for an important
percentage of our bilateral relations," stressed the Cuban official,
"mainly in medical assistance in different specialties." It extends to
vector control and fighting certain disease outbreaks in Ecuador.

"What is more important is that through exchange with different
institutions we have confirmed the existing potentials, both bilateral
and linked with the Secretariat of the Bolivarian Alliance of the
Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA)".

---

JG: The Yankee imperialists' embargo against Cuba has been a huge failure. Only corrupt U.S. politicians, like George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama, continue to promote it. Next week, the United General Assembly will condemn the blockade for the 21st consecutive year.

I do not support Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. They will not get my vote on November 6th.

Here are some: The Miami gusanos, The capitalist gringos who want to bring "democracy" back to Cuba, The Venezuelans who were given a huge paliza in the last elections, Faux News, the HuffPo feminazis.... I could go on and on and it would fill more than half a page.

The necrophiliacs scum brigades are saying that Fidel is dead. One day they will get it right, since everyone has to die.

Watch Fidel reappear again and all these scum will have to eat their shit!

The 52nd Cuban national baseball series will have a new
competitive structure, as revealed last Friday at a press conference by
Higinio Vélez, president of the Cuban Federation of that sport.

The new system imposes the “all against all” regardless of geographic
zones, and will have two stages: the first one with 45 games and 16
teams, and the second with 42 games by the first eight that classify in
the first round.

The series will open on Sunday, November 25, 2012 at José Ramón Cepero
stadium with a game between the locals, national champion Ciego de
Ávila, and second place winner Industriales.

Thus, all the Island’s provinces and the special municipality Isla de la
Juventud will have the possibility to play against the champion, but
they will have to compete hard from the very first day since 45 games is
not much and the margin for recovery will be very small.

The best eight teams will then play in the second round, with the
possibility of choosing up to five players from a draft made up by
players from the loser teams – a procedure that is not too-well known in
Cuba.

The four best-ranked teams from among the eight will then go to a
play-off where the first place will play against the fourth and the
second against the third. The winners of each one of these seven-game
duels will then discuss the Cuban national championship, now in
possession of the Tigers of Ciego de Ávila.

One of the most striking paradoxes of this new system of competition –
among many others that include having excluded the team Metropolitanos –
is the reduction from 96 to 87 the number of games in the regular
season, when the tournament should extend at least to 120 games,
particularly the second round, which evidently will have greater
quality.

In addition, this year the Series will be atypical due to the
celebration of the Third World Baseball Classic in March 2013, which
will call for a recess after game 45 of the national championship and
the Stars Game of the season.

At the press conference held in the protocol room of Havana’s Ciudad
Deportiva it was also disclosed that the national Cuban team will make
an exhibition tour to countries of Europe and Asia next
October-November, with Víctor Mesa as manager, in preparation of the
Classic, top baseball elite championship at present.

Barack Obama does not deserve another
four years. He is incompetent. Does that mean that things would get
better under Mitt Romney? Not necessarily. The U.S. is a country in
decline; nearly bankrupt, thanks to the policies of the Republican
and Democratic Parties during the last 53 years.

For President & V.P. of the United
States: Write-In NOTA, None-Of-The-Above, OR
vote for an alternative minor Socialist or Green Party.

For the U.S. Senate seat from the State
of Florida: Write in NOTA.

For the 11 Florida constitutional
amendments: Vote NO on all of them.

Retain the three Florida Supreme Court
justices: Vote YES.

For a Polk County subsidy for
corporations: Vote NO. Corporations are not people.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

As part of the work undertaken to update the current migration
policy adjusting it to prevailing conditions in the present and the
foreseeable future, the Cuban government has decided to forgo the
required Travel Permit as well as the Letter of Invitation.

Therefore, as from January 14th, 2013, it will only be
necessary to submit the ordinary passport, duly updated, and the
visa issued by the country of destination, in those cases when it is
required. The ordinary passport will be issued to the Cuban citizens
who meet the requirements of the Migration Law, as modified in
compliance with these provisions. Such Law will come into effect
ninety days after its publication in the Official Gazette of the
Republic of Cuba.

Those already in possession of an ordinary passport, issued
before this decision is valid, should request from the corresponding
authorities of the Ministry of the Interior its updating absolutely
free of charge. Likewise, those with a valid Travel Permit will be
able to depart without any additional procedure.

It has also been decided that Cuban residents travelling overseas
on private affairs will be permitted to remain there for a period of
twenty-four months, counting from the date of departure. For a
longer stay, they will be required to obtain the corresponding
evidence of extension of stay from a Cuban consulate.

The updating of the migration policy takes into account the right
of the revolutionary state to defend itself from the aggressive and
subversive plans of the US government and its allies. For this
reason, those measures aimed at preserving the human capital created
by the Revolution from the theft of talents practiced by the
powerful nations shall remain in force.

In due course, other measures related to the migratory issue will
be adopted that will certainly help in the consolidation of the
efforts being made by the Revolution towards the full normalization
of Cuba’s relations with its emigrants.

Today, the Official Gazette of the Republic of Cuba is publishing
the Law Decree of the State Council modifying the current Migration
Law as well as other supplementary regulations.

Additional information on the procedures required by the law and
other specificities concerning the country’s migration policy are
available to the people at the Dirección de Inmigración y
Extranjería and its voice message through phone number 2063218;
Portal del Ciudadano Cubano: www.ciudadano.cu; and the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cuba: www.cubaminrex.cu.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Today is that not-very-frequent day when the news about Cuba are positive. But capitalist news media (the new Nazis of the XXI century) hate Cuba so much that they always have to include editorializing when they are "reporting" news. They are never very objective.

Here is how I would have reported the news:

"Cuba will remove travel restrictions starting in January. It may ease most Cubans' exit and return, state media said on Tuesday."

Here is how Reuters' reporter Jeff Franks reported the same thing:

Tue Oct 16, 2012 10:05am EDT

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba will scrap much-reviled travel restrictions starting in January, easing most Cubans' exit and return, state media said on Tuesday, in the communist island's first major immigration reform in half a century.

Mr Franks, do you think that people are stupid when reading items, and that you have to explain it to them? Or are you just a marionette whose strings are being pulled by your capitalist masters?

People are capable of reading between the lines and getting rid of your sermonizing and editorializing.

Monday, October 15, 2012

1 October 2012 – Cuba’s Foreign Minister today called for the
urgent reform of the United Nations by reinforcing the powers of the
193-member General Assembly and expanding the 15-member Security Council
to make it truly representative of the world as it exists today, 65
years after its creation.

“It is urgent to save the United Nations Organization while subjecting
it to a profound reform to put it at the service of all the equally
sovereign States, and removing it from the arbitrariness and double
standards of a handful of industrialized and powerful countries,”
Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla told the 67th Assembly on the last day of its annual General Debate, at UN Headquarters in New York.

“The key role of the General Assembly should be restored and a
democratic, transparent and truly representative Security Council should
be re-launched,” he added. According to the world body’s structures,
only resolutions of the Council have legally binding force, which those
of the Assembly lack.

Citing the situation in Syria, where over 18,000 people have been killed
since an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad erupted some 19
months ago, Mr. Rodríguez said the United States and some European
government had decided to overthrow the Syrian Government, for which
purpose they have armed, financed and trained opposition groups, even
resorting to the use of mercenaries.

“Due mainly to the firm opposition by Russia and China, it has been
impossible to manipulate the Security Council to impose the
interventionist formula applied in recent warmongering adventures,” he
stated, referring to the Council’s deadlock over taking united action on
the Middle Eastern crisis, while also reaffirming the right of the
Syrian people to the full exercise of self-determination and sovereignty
without any interference or foreign intervention of any sort.

The Foreign Minister also called on the General Assembly to recognize
Palestine as a full member of the United Nations with the boundaries
established prior to 1967, before the Israeli occupied the territory in
the Six Day War, and with East Jerusalem as its capital.

“And it should do so now, with or without the consent of the Security
Council, with or without the United States veto, with or without new
peace negotiations,” he said.

The Cuban official strongly rejected the United States listing it as
sponsor of international terrorism, which he called a spurious pretext
“to increase the persecution of Cuba's financial transactions and
justify the blockade policy which has caused invaluable human and
economic damages that are worth one trillion dollars, estimated
according to the present value of gold…

“We reiterate to the United States, on the days prior to its elections,
our irrevocable vocation for peace and our interest to move on to the
normalization of relations through dialogue, on an equal footing and
with absolute respect for our independence,” he added.

Foreign Minister Rodríguez is one of scores of world leaders and other
high-level officials presenting their views and comments on issues of
individual, national and international relevance at the Assembly’s
General Debate, which ends later on Monday.

Friday, October 12, 2012

One of Fidel Castro's sons said the former Cuban president "is well"
and maintains a daily routine that includes reading and physical
exercise.

"The commander is well, going about his daily
occupations, reading, doing exercises," Alex Castro said after
inaugurating Thursday in the eastern city of Guantanamo an exhibit of
his photographs of Fidel, the official AIN news agency reported.

Once
again this week social networks like Twitter have been buzzing with
rumors about the health of the 86-year-old Fidel Castro, who delegated
power to younger brother Raul in 2006 after being stricken with a
serious intestinal ailment.

Castro has not published his
"Reflections," newspaper articles he began writing during his
convalescence, since June 19, after a week when he surprised readers
with a series of brief, cryptic messages.

The last photos of the
leader of the Cuban Revolution to be released were in late March, when
Fidel Castro, accompanied by several members of his family, was seen in
Havana with Pope Benedict XVI during his pastoral visit to Cuba.

Tuesday, October 09, 2012

Eighty percent of Cuban utilities, including the telephone company and electric commpany, were owned by Americans prior to Castro, so every rate hike or service outage was a Yankee afront. Forty percent of the sugar industry was American-owned, and the United States accounted for the lion share of the sugar market. This meant that Cuba lived by what the United States was willing to pay for sugar. No matter that the United States paid better than the international market price; the dependecny rankled Cuban pride.

Adding insult to injury, some Americans treated Cuba as if it existed to satisfy their lowest cravings. Sweet rum drinks, teenage prostitutes, live sex shows at the [American] mob-run casinos in Havana were all in the menu in the 1950's for visiting Americans (who include, on at least one occassion, a young U.S. senator named John F. Keennedy). Cubans had admitedly benefited from American tourist dollars, but the Cuban who gained the most was Fulgencio Batista. This went to the real sin of America from the Cubans' point of view: its historical tendency to back and enrich corrupt dictators such as Batista or, before him, Gerardo Machado and Ramon Grau. Such men hade made life miserable for average Cubans with their reigns of graft ﻿and terror. Batista himself had pocketed as much as $300 million at the same time that tens of thousands of his countrymen starved. Ruthless and shameless, Batista was America's man in Havana, and his sins became, in some nmeasure, America's.

As a U.S. Congressional candidate from
the Sate of Florida, Cuba Journal would like to ask you the following
questions:

Are you in favor or do you oppose
sending in a U.S. military force to the island of Cuba and either:

a) overthrowing the regime of Cuban
President Raul Castro and installing a regime who is friendly to the
United States?

Or:

b) annexation of the island to to the
United States?

Are you in favor or do you oppose
the continuation of the U.S. economic and financial embargo against the Republic of Cuba.?

3. What is your reaction to the
United Nations General Assembly for condemning in 2011, by a vote of
186-2, the U.S. economic and financial embargo against the Republic
of Cuba. Only Zionist Israel supported the U.S. All of our NATO
allies voted against the U.S.?

Are you in favor or do you oppose
the reestablishment of normal diplomatic relations with the Republic
of Cuba?

Do you favor or do you oppose
bringing in federal charges of international terrorism against
former CIA agent Luis Posada Carriles, who has received protection
and sanctuary in Miami from both George W. Bush and Barack H.
Obama.?

Please feel free to expand on your
responses, but a yes or no answer is sufficient.

Saturday, October 06, 2012

Cuba Demands Justice for Terrorism Victims

Victim of U.S. Terrorism﻿

Havana, Oct 6 (Prensa Latina) Cuba demands justice on the Day of the Victims of Terrorism, a scourge that, promoted and financed from the United States, has killed nearly 3,478 people and disabled 2,099 in the country.

Authorities, relatives of the victims and citizens from different generations demand an end to impunity on a march to Havana's Colon Cemetery, where a mausoleum was built in memory of the 73 people killed on October 6, 1976, in a sabotage on a Cuban airliner.

The date observed here to pay tribute to the victims of that sabotage is an occasion to demand Washington to stop protecting terrorists such as Luis Posada Carriles, the confessed mastermind of the mid-air explosion of Cubana de Aviacion's DC-8 airplane.

Posada Carriles lives freely in Miami, in South Florida, despite his record of violent actions against Cuba at the service of the CIA, and the extradition request from Venezuela, from where he escaped in 1985 while awaiting to be sentenced for the attack.

The Day of the Victims of Terrorism is also a day of condemnation of violence and commitment to peace.

Those kinds of events leave a mark on you, the pain has passed from generation to generation, from family to family, so we have to continue our struggle, not only for justice, but also to fight any terrorist action in the world, said Odalys Perez, the daughter of the pilot of the aircraft sabotaged in 1976, in statements to Prensa Latina.

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

I have already written about this officer before, I call her Wonder "Skinny" Woman, and she has a fetish and hobby: harassing peaceful homeless citizens.

Her real name is Officer Rojas, and this time (the second time that I have seen her harrasing homeless people) she brought reinforcements, her "stupidvisor" Officer Martin. Two police cruisers to take care of a poor old man. Policemen and\ policewomen in Winter Haven drive around in air conditioned cruisers. They would not know how to sweat their brow.

The old man was probably around 75 years old. He was sitting at a trail bench. I do not know what he was doing. To me he is just one of those Americans who, in our "American Dream," do not have a guaranteed roof over their heads.

My question is: WHERE ARE THE HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY NOW? The GOP is certainly not going to come to the aid of this old man. They only defend millionaires and billionaires, like the Koch brothers.

Just two blocks from this bench there is a park named Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the homeless people congregate in that place too. They are peaceful people who are just chatting. The big difference is that there can be 10-20 of them. Rojas and Martin would be overwhelmed. They would have to bring in the National Guard with them. They do not have the guts to show thier faces at the park named after the legendary civil rights fighter.

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